The Undergraduate Student Government passed a kosher dining resolution calling for an “equitable” kosher meal plan to be made available for Jewish students at the USG meeting on March 13. The resolution calls for USC Residential Dining to work with campus partners and Jewish affiliates to set up a kosher kitchen by August 2021.
Kosher foods adhere to the strict dietary traditions of Jewish law. The laws are primarily derived from the Torah, and not only dictate what foods are kosher or not, but the way foods should be prepared. For example, the Torah permits land animals who chew their cud and have cloven hooves, so beef would be kosher while pork would not.
USC started serving pre-packaged kosher food three nights a week in the Village Dining Hall back in March 2018. Because of the low turnout, USC informed students would be charged for the kosher meals regardless of whether they were picked up.
According to the resolution, the program has since closed. This left the 17 percent of USC’s student population that is Jewish, without kosher food. Of the ten private schools in the country with the largest Jewish populations, USC became the only one to not have a dedicated kosher dining hall or restaurant on campus.
Senior and president of Chabad @ USC Benjamin Shiff, who authored the USG resolution, said USC’s lack of kosher options in freshman year dining halls was a difficult obstacle to overcome in attending USC.
“As a freshman I had to have a meal plan, and USC did not yet provide kosher food,” he said. “I could not eat nearly all of the food on-campus.”
Shiff emphasized that the challenge was not just for him alone but for the wider Jewish community.
“Lack of kosher food was almost a reason for me not coming to USC, and for many Jewish high school students, it remains a reason they choose different schools,” he said
His resolution suggests several solutions for the USC administration to consider.
One would be to distribute food cooked at a newly constructed kitchen on the premises of Chabad @ USC, a Jewish organization, near campus. Another option would be to repurpose a space on campus to become a Kosher Kitchen. Otherwise, the resolution urged USC to come up with another solution as long as it can be implemented by August 2021.
While the administration has previously experimented with short-term solutions, Shiff argues that a full kosher option must be made available to make the campus a more welcoming place.
“I wrote this resolution because a major concern about providing kosher food was whether there was enough student support to justify the cost of a kosher program,” Shiff explained. “The USG resolution shows Residential Dining and the administration that there is student support behind a university-supported kosher meal plan.”